nice! another one that makes good use of white space.

the only things i would suggest would be to perhaps come up with a bit more consistency in your page layouts, and also, some of the pages look a bit cluttered.

i like a lot of your spreads. the text spacing seems to be a bit of an issue. i would suggest playing around with some other options (double justifying it makes for some weird word spacings)

Thanks for the responses. Yeah, that is one of the things definitely being reworked in the next version (text/cleaning it out some), thanks for pointing those out.

I put this together in a 36hr smash session, as deadline time was nearing. I have seen too many people dwell on their books for too long, constantly revising to no end. I thought the opposite approach could work (I work best under intense pressure).

initial response: nicely done. i haven't read through the text yet. i agree with dread's first comment most. this is clean and makes good use of positive/negative space. good balance. don't muck it up too much when you revisit.

good luck.

overall the content is good, i would agree the layouts could have a little more consistency...i think you can do this with the text. (make a grid template and position your text in similar positions for each spread). images don't need to be that consistent, but should have some rules.

i also agree with the word spacing comment. don't just use auto-spacing in photoshop/illustrator. i just got out of a graphics design class, and apparently this is a big no no. typography selection is also key.

i would also end on a bigger note than the professional work...i think the end of a portfolio is just as important as the beginning. the boring professional stuff should be tucked in somewhere in the middle.

yeah, i second dot's last comment.

i really enjoy it when the relatively dull professional work pops out at the end of all the student work. oh wait i dont.

i think you need to probably showcase 2-3 more of the professional project.

Thanks for the great comments so far. I appreciate that this place is real and honest. I tried to work hard and fast on this one, forcing me to go from the gut without question. Oftentimes, this works well but I definitely can see now how I overlooked some graphical things in my haste. This is the second version, third in the works.

I thought double justifying the text would look a bit cleaner visually and as a graphic device. I can recognize now that it needs some work here and there.

As far as the 'less-shiny' pro work section goes, I don't know why I didn't cram that in the middle somewhere. The rest of the portfolio isn't organized chronologically, so I for sure will be moving this.

Thanks again guys, keep it coming!

(Bookmarking this page right now for future reference.)

The materiality of the library interior feels underdeveloped. The only thing that grates for me is the dancing people in one of the renderings...why?

I like the layout, and agree that you need to work with the kerning. Maybe I'm not theoretical enough, but I found your actual built work interesting and did not like that you labeled it "auxillary". Overall really nice presentation.

good stuff.

my suggestion is to redo your sketches on the one project...they really stuck out to me as a different and not at the same quality as the rest of the work.

i agree with the posts above...professional work---uggh. the curse of the early portfolio. my solution was to just have 2 portfolios. (i guess i wimped out.) but if you mix it in, try to find the academic side to the project-- something that was investigated during the project.

Recently, I've been trying to have some more fun with my scale figures...getting tired of the standard dog walkers, pointers, lookers, etc. I feel they can add a bit of life/drama to a render that otherwise lacks it and make it pop a bit more. A lot of people on the review for that project loved that image for some reason.

The professional work is what I have done while being an intern at a firm in my hometown. The overall design work was overseen/ran by someone with more experience, but I had the freedom to create many of the drawings/models/renders from scratch. So I can't really say it is *my* built work, though I was instrumental in getting them to where they are now.

I think having academic and professional work in the same book is a strong move for someone of my status. It shows grad schools that not all of my work is up in the air and that I can take on life after them, and potential employers that I can think both ways...

What about the lack of hand drafted stuff? I moved pretty much 100% to the computer for presentation work after first year, and didn't really keep anything from those days. I am worried that the lack of precision hand drawing will hurt this portfolio in some schools' eyes.

I must agree,

I like all the white space.

jostah. . .

well done! but i agree with some of the earlier comments. . . some pages seem a bit cluttered. Is this portfolio of work done at Washington State? Or is that where you’re applying?

Good luck!!!

please kill the dancing dude.

Thanks! Yeah, this is work I've done at WSU. I'm about to graduate with the 4yr b.arch. Applying to sciarc, gsapp, and uw. This website is making me insane looking at all the commiserate threads.

I like.


I'd kill the professional work, even though it is at least thorough. It really dilutes the portfolio that seems to have a lot of solid projects (maybe even too many).

I normally don't comment on the portfolios but had a quick glance...

i think it looks way to conventional - this is more like a job application than a grad school application. I don't like the layout very much - it's like you try and ram it all in there and it gets messy and cluttered like others have stated plus it looks "templated" and outdated. I don't actually think I can call it layout - more a sequence of projects stringed across the pages. I also felt little connection/progress between them. It's all a bit same-y. Do you not have any images/drawings that you feel gutsy enough to donate a whole page to?
The last "Auxiliary" pages feel odd...If you really are into glass blowing and music and whatnot I'm not seeing that in your portfolio at all. I don't think the hand drawing looks good - have you not get better stuff or could do something better for the portfolio? Why is there a "Contents" page?

Sorry, a bit negative. And I will never show you mine... :-)

Has it been removed? I keep getting an error message.

i cant seem to access it...can you put it back up? id love to see it!

Yeah, I can put it back up. I initially intended to just have it up for a few days to get some comments. Here's the new link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/jonathon.stahl/Pfolio/photo#s5182490584806910386